From fire, water, the passage of time, neglectful readers, and the hand of the censor, each of my books has escaped to tell me its story.

If the Epic of Gilgamesh carries a teaching, it is that the other makes our existence possible.

What the poet tells us is that, after the ordeals and adventures, after the revelation and the loss, the king must do two things: preserve the splendor of his city and tell his own story. Both tasks are complementary: both speak of the intimate connection between building a city of walls and building a story of words, and both require, in order to be accomplished, the existence of the other.

In the light, we read the inventions of others; in the darkness we invent our own stories.